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Playing the lead character in a television show is a large challenge in itself — now add pregnancy into the mix. Kerry Washington recently revealed to The Hollywood Reporter, shooting “Scandal” Season 3 while pregnant, was one of her biggest challenges in the business to date.

“All of last season was a challenge for me, on a few levels. For one
thing, I was going through this amazing physical transition, this
physical journey of having a baby, that my character was not going
through. And I work very physically. What I do is often grounded in the body,” the Emmy nominated actress tells the magazine.

Washington was pregnant with her first child with husband Nnamdi Asomugha during a majority of the third season of the hit ABC show and the actress admits it was hard working around her growing baby bump, “I had to figure out how to be this woman while my instrument was
changing and evolving every day. It was like seeing the keys on a piano
jump around on a daily basis. It was tough for me to even maintain
Olivia’s walk because of the changes,” she explains.

With pregnancy came additional emotional changes as well, Washington reveals, “At the same time, everything I understood about Olivia unraveled because
of the storylines. The season really broke me. I’m a Type A actor who
likes to have it all figured out going in, but suddenly I had no idea
where this woman was going to go next. I had to jump in without
everything being perfect.”

The experience with shooting while pregnant was also a real learning experience for the actress, “I felt like I had been in control playing the character, but it all got
taken away from me last season. That meant my acting toolbox had to be
upgraded. I had to trade in my screwdriver and hammer for a Black and
Decker power tool,” Washington tells THR.

Washington gave birth to daughter Isabelle on April 21, so Olivia Pope will be back to her old self in Season 4.